Archive for September, 2006

What if one day a philosopher is born who is able to answer all of the “eternal questions” of philosophy, would he be revered or hated? What if this philosopher provided irrefutable proofs for all of his arguments and left no hole or weakness? Would he be believed or would he be derided for his certainty? I have no doubt in my mind how he would be received by academia.

Academic Philosophy today is about “asking the right questions” – forgetting that the purpose of asking questions is to elicit responses and that the art of asking the right questions if for the purpose of eliciting the right responses. Academic philosophers love to be in a state of doubt; or at least if they do not love it, they find it necessary. In order for them to maintain their often outrageous beliefs, they must cast epistemic mists upon the mind of those who would otherwise confront them. In order to be a Hegelian, one must become absurd and deny the principle of non-contradiction. In order to be a Pragmatist, one must assume that concepts have no definite referents. In order to be a Platonist, one must engage in metaphysical and epistemological back-flips to justify Forms. Any rational layman would be able to refute these positions with nothing more than common sense – if they were not disarmed with epistemic mist cast upon them by their interlocutor.

When Plato says that the Forms exist in another world that is cut off from us because of our bodies, the proper response is “well then how do you know about it?” The question is mere common sense – if we as humans are cut off from the world of the Forms because of our physical bodies, and if Plato is a person with a physical body, then Plato too is cut off from the world of the forms and can claim no knowledge of them. If Plato rebuts by saying that we have all been there in another life, we just forget this knowledge when we’re born, the proper response is “what proof do you have of this?” Any assertion without evidence is arbitrary and should be dismissed as such. Common sense, the modern day remnant of Aristotelian philosophy, is the only shield that laymen have against Academic philosophers – unless they want to spend just a little bit of time thinking about the issues.

The Academic program is only kept in place because of doubt – their doubt in their abilities to find truth, their doubt in their abilities to recognize it if they were to find it, and the doubt of those who never question them and deride them for the charlatans they are. Indeed, Academic philosophers by and large are charlatans – the intellectual heirs of the Sophists. It is through their tricks that they are able to keep their jobs and their false prestige.

The state of the philosophical community is even worse than most could imagine though – a state more suited to paranoid fiction than reality. In order to gain admittance into the halls of academia, one must first pass through graduate school and be recognized by the current faculty as an intellectual equal. In graduate school one is subjected to more years of intellectual “brow-beating” as their modus operandi consists of only acknowledging work done in certain ways. Why only these certain ways? Well, that is just the way it is done. Anyone who does not follow “the path” into academia to get acknowledged by the philosophical community will not be recognized by them. Woe be it to the philosopher who does not get a PhD – ignoring the fact that almost none of the “great” philosophers had them. Worse though is the philosopher who would dare to become popular; any work which is intellectual would never appeal to the common man, so the academics say, therefore any popular work must not be good. Personally I think that there is a great deal of intelligence and intellectual honesty among the “common man” – in general they have a common sense that is not found among academics.

Let us return, then, to our initial question – if there were a philosopher who could answer all of the questions of Philosophy, would he be recognized? Yes, by the common man, and most certainly not by academia.

It had to happen – with an (true) unemployment rate of 21%, something has got to give. Incidentally, apparently when people say “Socialism works” – what they mean is that “Socialism causes massive unemployment”. Indeed it does.

There is something seriously wrong in the world today – I am still unemployed. Seriously, this is no mere rant. Doesn’t it seem odd that someone who is a hard-worker, is intelligent, a good leader, has two Bachelor’s, and has worked non-stop in different jobs since high school can’t find a job in three months?

Three months is the current economic cut-off before one becomes a “discouraged worker” and now I know why. Instead of being welcomed into the workforce as fresh blood and an impetus to increase productivity and profit – I find the doors to the hallowed halls of enterprise closed to me by nothing more than entrenched mediocraties sitting protected behind labor laws.

Well dammit! Some people do not deserve jobs and should be fired! I don’t care what happen to all the retarded people who work at Wal-Mart. I don’t care about the middle-aged workers who couldn’t rise above an assistant manager in a retail store. I don’t care about the uninspired mediocraties who feel threatened by a good worker and consequently shun him for someone who will not displace them. These people need to go! It is monstrous that such a state should be allowed to come to pass – worse that this state is supported by law!!!

Why are there laws against who you can fire and for what reason and under what circumstances? Isn’t the employment contract merely between an individual and an employer? What role should the state play in labor? None! The state should do no more than to uphold the private employment contracts that are freely entered into – it should not dictate the terms or these or institute laws effectively making these contracts meaningless.

But what annoys me the most is that instead of writing like I should be doing, and working on philosophy and trying to answer the questions that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time – I am stuck searching for dead-end jobs at retail stores! I am stuck applying to the same meaningless jobs over and over again in the hopes that I might get one. A job I’d enjoy? HA! I’d be happy to settle for anything with a paycheck before I’m forced to find out what eviction feels like.

Instead of setting up funds to help out new intellectuals like myself, this simpering christian world has given billions to retards, to perverts, and decadents! They hate the good and want no more than to “help” the evil – of course, at the expense of the good. Why is it that no one has set up funds to help out people who deserve it and who will change the world for the better? Why is it that if I want to write a book I’m forced to work for years at jobs I’ll hate and do menial work to barely make enough money to live on – while if I stick a needle in my arm I’ll be set up by some fun little charity who wants to make the world “a better place”.

Listen up people. If you want to make the world a better place, help the GOOD not the bad. Help those who can fix the problems, not the results of the problems. Fix the problems themselves, don’t patch the symptoms. Instead of charities for worthless people, set up charities to help good people get going when they need it most!

The world needs to be saved from the fools and it seems that these fools are not so foolish because they are effectively ham-stringing the ablest among us. And here we have the true goal of egalitarians and christians and all the other man-haters – the destruction of the best and the enshrinement of the worst.

How has the world become so corrupt? Is intellectual honesty completely dead?